Padraic wrote:I object to the term "mongrels" applied to hatchery trout. It's inaccurate for one thing. Except for tiger trout, the trout are not crossbred. More to the point, it's needlessly polemic.

I concur that it seems over-the-top at best and shameful at worst that someone with the natural high-road of an argument would feel the need to take an unnatural low-road to "winning" it. Add to that a slight distortion by half-truth in that it may be hard to count streams where stocking occurs over any even insignificant population of wild trout, it would not be difficult at all to count the streams where such stocking occurs over objectively "recreational" levels of wild trout.

Posted on: 2006/12/4 13:00

_________________ "Only nature is good, only the natural is human,..."

Here, however, we are experiencing the consequences of the doctrine, lately preached from all the rooftops, that the state is the highest goal of mankind....

I agree with Jack: high road stance…low road writing. Also, Mongrel is largely incorrect when referring to stocked trout. The exceptions are tiger, palamino, and possibly cuttbows. Genetic mutants may be a more correct term rather than mongrels. While, I don’t have a fondness for stocked trout, the fact is I fish for them fairly often, since there isn’t very many places I can fish for wild trout close to home. The main point is that stocked trout are okay for marginal trout or true warm water fisheries, just don’t stock them to the detriment of wild fish. Also, don’t spend such a disproportionate amount of a limited budget to raise and stock trout. Spend more to protect, preserve, and enhance wild trout.

I am one that doesn’t believe the PFBC is the evil empire. It’s just a government bureaucracy struggling for its survival, and it’s survival depending on license sales. The author mentioned giving the PFBC money from the general fund to help wild trout. IMO, a better and more equitable way to fund the PFBC would be to add a small sales tax (1%) on all fishing and boating equipment, similar to the Pittman-Robertson act for hunting. I would be happy to spend a dollar for every $100 of fishing equipment I purchase, if it were spent to enhance wild trout or lease/purchase public fishing areas.

IMO, a better and more equitable way to fund the PFBC would be to add a small sales tax (1%) on all fishing and boating equipment, similar to the Pittman-Robertson act for hunting. I would be happy to spend a dollar for every $100 of fishing equipment I purchase, if it were spent to enhance wild trout or lease/purchase public fishing areas.

There already is such a tax on fishing tackle. I hope someone can give the full details. But my understanding is that is a federal tax of 10 percent applied at the wholesale level.

The PFBC used some of this federal money for the Spring Creek lands purchases, I believe. And I think they get some to help support their stream assessment work. And I think some goes to hatcheries and boat ramps etc.

But I wish someone would do a study of these monies and how they have been used over the last 20 years or so. It must be a fair amount of money.

A good percentage of this money each year should be used to purchase land along streams for both access and conservation (riparian buffer) purposes.

The Spring Creek land purchases were good, but that was a one shot deal. Their last major purchase of that type was on Penns Creek way back in the 1960s. And there have been no such major "stream real estate" purchases since the Spring Creek properties.

I was aware that there is a federal excise tax on fishing equipment. I didn't know the specifics, and I appreciate the info. I was proposing a State tax to benefit PA fisheries. It is apparent that license revenues are declining, and will continue to decline in the near future, while costs continue to rise. A tax on fishing / boating equipment is the only equitable solution that I can come up with to allow the PFBC to fund important projects. Taking funds from the PA general tax revenue fund would not be popular, as well as not being equitable to all taxpayers, IMHO.

I am not at all upset by the article. I certainly wasn’t misquoted. That is more than I can say for some other times I have been interviewed by reporters.

As for the use of the term ‘mongrels‘ to describe hatchery trout, that was probably meant to be provocative. Writers and speakers often use statements like this to stir up the audience. I have been guilty of that myself. Statements like this get the audience’s attention and it certainly accomplished that purpose. Besides, the terms “rubber trout” and “finless-witless-wonders” had already been much used, especially on this board.

As for the accuracy of the term ‘mongrels’ for hatchery trout, it is not really off the mark. For instance: the term mongrel is used to distinguish the product of an interbreeding of two breeds of dogs, all of which were derived from the wolf. The products of such an interbreeding are fertile.

This is not true for tiger trout. This more applicable term in this case would be hybrid, the offspring of which are often infertile. Tiger trout are more akin to the mule.

Hatchery trout are the product of interbreeding between many different populations/strains of the same species, often with rather different characteristics. Brown trout are a classic example: The various populations/strains, whatever you want to call them, were all mixed up when they were imported into this country from Europe. But all brown trout can and do freely breed and the young are equally fertile.

The genetics of hatchery brook trout have been similarly mixed after some 100 years of domestication. They can and do freely breed with native brook trout. But the characteristics that enable brook trout to survive in the wild are quite different from those needed to survive in the hatchery. So interbreeding of hatchery and domesticated strains is almost always detrimental.

I agree with Ken, Hatchery trout are mongrels, they've been bred using so many froms of their species it is hard to tell 1 from the other anymore, this is why there are so many variations in trout appearence particularly browns. Rainbows have been cross bred so many times they can't even reproduce in most streams they are stocked. And brookies have trouble surviving more then a few weeks after stocking. I believe mongrels is an apt word for them.